Totally Green

We just bought a home with an amazing Chicken coop. We want to raise hens with our two young daughters. We would like to start from eggs and hatch our chicks. I have no idea where to get everything we need. What breed, what incubator, how many eggs? Our coop is big enough for 4-5 hens. We live in California Central Valley it is hot in the summer 110 to about 30 degrees in the winter. Where do I start? Does anyone out there want to mentor a greeny like me?

There are many different incubators to choose from as well. You can even build one yourself if you want. Are you planning on doing just one hatch to get yourself some hens or are you going to continue hatching and possibly selling chicks or expanding your coop in future? These are things to consider before you spent money on your incubator.

Before you start incubating eggs, have a look at these threads, covering the different aspects of incubating and hatching eggs:

It's difficult to tell how many eggs you should incubate as there are so many factors involved and a 100% hatch rate is rare. You could set 10 eggs and get anything from 1-10 chicks! And then you don't know how many of those are going to be roosters.

Another option for you is to buy some day-old chicks and raise them yourself. There are a couple of hatcheries under constant discussion here: